Dreaming On The Past
by Gevaudan
Summary: Chapter three at last. The dreams take on a sinister turn...
1. Default Chapter

TITLE: Kaimelien no' vell wanwie (Dreaming On The Past)

AUTHOR: Gevaudan

RATING: PG

SET: 10 years after the destruction of the ring.

DISCLAIMER: The characters are, unless stated, creations and property of Tolkien. Not mine. I make no money from this…

THAKNS TO: Olôrin Mithêl's Elven translator, for umm, precisely that. Thanks all to Anna Rousseau. And my boss who told me the extended LOTR DVD could also come with bookends J

***

The world of dreams was his world, as it had been for the last three millennia, but now, as they had been for the last three weeks his dreams were being haunted by a shadow in his mind. As he tossed back and forth he felt, as he had for night upon night, the pressure on his mind, the pressure that felt like someone was trespassing on his thoughts, taking over there and waiting for something to be revealed. And then, as his always did, he saw them. Two figures in sea blue walking towards him, across a wasteland, the like of which he had never seen prior to this. Their faces were dark and obscured but as they walked towards him, he felt, as before, a vague feeling of threat. And that threat was creeping nearer. And then, as he had every night previously, Legolas Son of Thranduil, Prince of Mirkwood and Lord of Ithilien, awoke, a startled cry dying on his lips, sweating, trembling and unable to sleep for the remainder of the night.

This sequence had repeated itself every time he allowed his mind to slip into the dream world, be it night or day, and the reserves that he drew on to sustain himself were dwindling dangerously thin. 

Angrily, Legolas threw of the light covers he lay beneath and exited his chambers to the staircase that curled languorously around the tree of Ithilien which supported it. As he stood gazing idly over the forest he passed a hand over dull grey eyes that usually gleamed sapphire blue and with a limp gesture flicked back a strand of limp blonde hair. Part of him was aware that he looked unkempt with hair usually brushed and braided hanging loose and tangled, a larger part did not care. All he wished for was uninterrupted rest so that he did not feel so tired, so useless, so hopeless all the time. Dejectedly he realised that the rest he sought desperately was not to be granted to him beneath the boughs of his beloved trees. No other inhabitant of Ithilien suffered from the nightmares that plagued him. A healer who had come to speak to him on beholding his terrible appearance had suggested it was a delayed reaction to the events of ten years ago, until he had pointed out that blue robed figures had not figured prominently in the destruction of the Ring, doubting as he did that he would have nightmares about Gandalf trying to kill him. At that she had left mumbling comments she thought he could not hear about 'stubborn fools,' and 'madness'. 

And that, he knew was what lay at the crux of the matter, the Elves who dwelled in Ithilien seemed to think he was slowly going mad. The events of the past ten years, joining the fellowship, the death of Boromir, the battles at Helm's Deep and Pellenor Fields, the destruction of the Ring, his poisoning by Duredhel, especially that, he reflected, were deemed worthy enough to send him to the brink of his sanity. But within himself Legolas felt no different, just soul-crushingly weary, and that, he noted wryly, had lasted so long he felt he was about to lose his grip on reality. He had to get away from this place, he decided. It was his home but he felt that everyone was watching, slowing charting his suspected descent into insanity.  Himself, he didn't see why nightmares made people think he was mentally ill. Everyone suffered from them at some time or other. But not, he recognized, the same thing, every night, without fail, and surely not with such an overwhelming sense of invasion within his own head. Yes, he had to get away from this place, but to where?

Lasgalen? There he would get peace and quiet that was for sure. Few dwelled in Mirkwood now, many Elves from there had taken their final journeys to Valinor, those that remained in Middle Earth had moved to live in Ithilien. However, despite the destruction of the ring Mirkwood still remained dark and vaguely sinister, no longer did any semblance of Greenwood, the place Mirkwood had been when Legolas was born, remain. Legolas would return there no more; his home there would be consigned to a memory until the ends of his days.

He needed, he decided, to be among friends. Someone who had experienced what he had experienced, someone he could talk to, who could help him stop the dreams that haunted his sleep, and for that there was only one place he could go. Minas Tirith, The home of the King of Gondor, a man of many names, Elessar, Aragorn, Wingfoot and Estel. Hope.

Legolas left immediately, leaving only a brief message in a note. Then taking a mount from the small stable beneath his home he left to return to Gondor and the golden city of Minas Tirith. 

He rode through the night, not pausing for food or rest. Upon reaching the plains of Rohan the gentle canter of the horse across the flat land lulled him into a gentle sleep, his eyes unseeing as they gazed unswervingly across the night darkened grasslands. 

It was there once more. A shadow and a threat in his mind, not dissimilar to the presence of the Uruk Hai that he had felt all those long years ago. He tried to force his mind back to the land of the waking but trying as he might his mind was unable to free itself from the trap it was ensnared in. 

Then he saw it again, the open desert plains, Legolas could feel the coarse grains of sand and pebble beneath his feat, the hot sun radiating onto his fair skin. The two figures once more floating effortlessly towards him arms outstretched. Their heads were bent so all he could see of them was their bowed heads. The dream was running the course it had run every time before, but now it seemed different, more powerful, and the two figures seemed to becoming closer than previously. Soon it seemed that he could make out every detail in the robes before him. Legolas tried frantically to back away from them, to run and escape the mind crushing presence, gaining strength inside his mind. Yet as he tried desperately to escape he felt his feet sinking deeper into the sand, and the more he tried to free himself the deeper he sank until he was buried to his waist in the fine, deadly grains. Then they were before him, the dark faceless features, so much like those of the wraiths gazed down upon him. One reached out a cold, unfeeling hand, and gently touched the cheek of the Elf before him.

Who crashed back to awareness with a distressed lurch that threw him from the back of his horse to land with a sickening thud on the ground beneath him, the sudden impact stealing away both his breath and his hold on consciousness. A blissful drop into unconsciousness in which no blue figures haunted him.


	2. In Dreams Together

Title: In Dreams Together

Author: Gevaudan

Author's Note: My apologies on the lateness of this. I've been busy with AS level work, Christmas, my birthday, a trip to Nottingham and see Two Towers three times. To top it all off, I wrote this and saved it on a disk. The disk worked on my home computer but then mysteriously deleted everything I had written and now appears to have been reformatted by a considerate member of my family who didn't check what was on it...who later explained that he had not deleted it he had moved it…Grrr, younger brothers are so annoying!!!

To White Wolf and Linis.... Thanks. Between the two of you I got round to writing again :-) 

***

The King of Gondor, Elessar, the holder of the Elfstone, sat at his heavy, mallorn wood desk, signing his name carefully on document after document using a long eagle feathered quill that Gandalf the White, Head of the Istari, had given him shortly after his coronation ten years ago. The feather was said to come from the eagle lord Gwaihir himself. Gandalf had said that the Lord Eagle had permitted the wizard to take a single feather, and have in made into a quill as a gift from one monarch to another. Elessar had been deeply touched and now counted the quill among his most treasured possessions. 

A knock came at the door to his study, after a pause the knock came again, louder this time.  It seemed whoever waited outside was not to be dissuaded from their purpose.

'Come,' the monarch of Gondor sighed, secretly relieved to have a distraction from the tedium of day-to-day bureaucracy. The dark door swung open to reveal a young man in his twenties garbed in a charcoal grey doublet bearing the white tree emblem, revealing him to be a guard of the tower. Aragorn recognised him as Eragor, a distant cousin of his close friend, Faramir, the steward of Gondor. 

'Yes, Eragor? What can I do for you?' the monarch asked his subject, smiling gently as he turned to face him.

The young man shuffled uneasily into the study as though unsure of how to proceed. Elessar could see in his eyes his conflict and subsequent battle to sort his thoughts into order.

'Sir,' he finally began, 'on our regular morning patrol of the plains we discovered a rider-less mount straying alone.' He stopped then, abruptly as though waiting for the King to guess the rest of the context of his conversation. His nervousness at this encounter was betrayed by the frenetic tapping of his feet upon the ground. 

'A horse of Rohan, do you think?' Elessar asked, trying to draw the young man into conversation.

'No sir. The horse, carried packs and was bridled yet it wore no saddle.'

Elessar could think of only one person that he had seen ride in such a way, worriedly he asked his next question.

'Did you find the rider?'

'Yes Sir. We bought him to the Halls of Healing. We are not sure but we think the rider may have been Lord Legolas of Ithilien.'

He may as well have been speaking to the wind, at his words Elessar had exited the room to be at the side of his friend.

***

He entered the Halls at a dead run, stopping suddenly at the sight of the Elf laid out before him. His face was such a deathly white that it appeared to blend into the sheet he lay on. Elessar's breath caught in his throat, Legolas was so still and unmoving that he had to look hard to see the faint rising and falling of his chest. He approached slowly not wishing to disturb the creature so still before him. His fears were allayed slightly when cool blue eyes flickered towards him, dark as coals in his alabaster face.

_'Ai, mellon nin,'_ he whispered softly, shocked at the haunted look in the eyes that regarded him unblinking.

'Aragorn?' Legolas whispered, his voice as dry as leaves on a breeze, 'What happened?'

'I was hoping,' his friend replied, smiling at the use of the name he had borne as the Dunedain of the Rangers, 'That you could tell me something of that.'

He poured a tumbler of watch from a pitcher beside the Elf's bed, before gently assisting into a sitting position, with one gentle hand at his back.

'Steady,' he cautioned as Legolas drank thirstily, 'do you remember nothing that happened to you?'

The Elf sat for a moment before reaching gentle probing fingers to the back of his head, fingers that Aragorn knocked away before they reached their intended target.

'I banged my head,' he commented finally with a wan smile. 

Aragorn returned the gesture although it did not reach the eyes. Although for a mortal Legolas' wound would have been considered severe, he had never seen such an injury affect the Mirkwood warrior so badly. It suggested that something more was amiss that the Elf could either not remember or was loathe to reveal and the King was determined to find out what was afflicting the archer so badly.   

'And how,' he asked, 'did you achieve such a feat?'

There was another pause, slightly longer this time.

'I was riding, so I must have fallen off...Arod! Did your patrol find him Ara... forgive me, Elessar, for I do not think Eomer would forgive me easily were he to become lost.'

Aragorn touched his stricken friend's shoulder reassuringly, 'You may call me Aragorn, I have been known as that to you long before I took the name Elessar, and yes, Arod is here he is in the stable with Hasufel.'

The Elf relaxed then leaning back into the soft cushions Aragorn had propped up for him.

'Why were you riding in the dead of night Legolas? Surely nothing is amiss in Ithilien?'

'No, all is fair in Ithilien now. Faramir and I had a problem with a band of rogue orcs but that was last month and since then all has been quiet. Ithilien is once again a garden, as I hoped it would be. I will indeed be sorry when my people depart to the west.'

'As will all of Gondor,' Aragorn commented thinking sadly of the day when his oldest friend would make his final journey across the sea to Valinor, 'no land is as beautiful as one in which the Fair Folk dwell.'

'The lands will remain beautiful Aragorn. The very earth and stones will remember our dwelling there and tell of our passing long after our voices fall silent.'

Aragorn nodded, remembering the Vale of Hollin at the base of Caradhras, where his friend had heard the stones in the earth remember the passing of the Fair Folk into the West.

'So all is well in Ithilien,' he clarified, receiving a gentle nod from Legolas, 'then what persuaded you to travel here in the dead of night? I have not seen you give up your rest for anything less than the arising of the Dark Lord himself.'

Legolas smiled again, briefly, before answering, 'Nay, the Dark Lord does not rise, I merely left later in the evening than I anticipated I would, yet I saw no reason to delay my journey until the next morning.'

'Legolas, to be where our patrol found you, you must have left in the dead of night! Are you sure nothing is amiss?' 

Legolas' eyes flared with a blue fire at these words.

'I am not so grievously wounded, Elessar, that I forget any danger, to Ithilien or myself! I know what my errand here was and I know that it was no more that a desire to see old friends once more and to meet Eldarion, since I have not seen since him since he was a babe.'

Angrily he stared at the man before him until he was forced to drop his gaze to his knees, upon which his hands were held clenched.

'That is not,' he replied, voice strained, 'what I was implying Legolas.'

The man lifted his eyes to meet the blue orbs of his friend, which were now filled with repentance.

'Forgive me,' the Elf spoke softly now, 'I have been somewhat on edge of late.' He forcibly brightened his face. 'Now, since I have arrived I have completed only one of three parts of my task. I have not yet seen the Lady Arwen or your son, Aragorn.' He made as if to swing his legs over the side of the bed, grimacing slightly at the dull stab of pain the movement caused him.

'Steady,' Aragorn cautioned him, the hand once more returning the hand to the elf's shoulder, 'I cannot let you see Arwen with the state you are in at the moment.'

'I am not hurt Aragorn. I am almost completely recovered now.'

A gleam of wicked humour appeared in the man's eyes.

'It is not your injury that concerns me my friend. It is merely the state of your appearance. At the very least your hair needs a good brush, Master Elf, before I will let you anywhere near my wife.'

Legolas' eyes glinted.

'I think, that however I may appear, I should be a distinct improvement to behold than you, my _friend.'_

Aragorn tipped his head.

'Tell me, Master Elf, which of us did Arwen marry you or me?'

Legolas paused for a moment, as if deep in thought.

'Well,' he replied finally with a light laugh that lifted the spirits of all who heard it, 'they do say love is blind.' 

***

Time passed swiftly in Minas Tirith, as Legolas had known it would. He had been overjoyed to meet with Aragorn's wife once more. Arwen Undomiel, Evenstar of her people had lost none of her beauty and grace since giving up her immortality to be at the side of the mortal man she loved.

Eldarion had grown much since Legolas had seen him last, reminding him sadly of how fleeting the time of a man on Middle Earth was. He had the dark hair and eyes of his father and reminded the Elf greatly of the child Estel who had been brought up in the House of Elrond at Imladris. He had seen the child, as he had been on his way to bed, led unwilling by the hand by his mother. Briefly the child had turned curious eyes on the visitor to his house but had paid him no mind as he had returned to protesting that he did not want a bath.

***

The dream struck again that night, with the same figures reaching out to him. This time they stood not in a desert but on the Plains of Rohan. Far behind them Legolas could make out the Halls of Edoras, shining golden in the sunlight. Dimly too he sensed a presence at his back but try as he might he could not turn to see who stood there. The blue figures came closer and closer, skeletal hands outstretched to caress his pale cheek. Their touch was as cool as ice sending a shiver through his body like a cascade of icy water. He gasped and flinched away but the skeletal fingers dug into his jaw, forcing his eyes to a dark shadowy hood. 

A reedy voice echoed around him penetrating his mind and lodging there like a thought he could not get rid of. 

'Gandalf?' it asked with a hissing sibilant tone, 'Where is Gandalf?'

***

Legolas awoke gasping unsure of what to make of the question asked of him. Long minutes did he lay there, the message playing over and over in his head until finally he stood and left the room in search of fresh air to clear his head.

Wandering the corridors aimlessly he came across a small figure dressed in his nightclothes. Smiling Legolas slowly approached Aragorn's son, the heir to the throne of Gondor.

'Hello,' the small child greeted him as Legolas crouched before him, 'Who are you?'

'I am Legolas, son of Thranduil,' the Elf replied with a smile, 'I am an old friend of your father's.'

'Are you an Elf?' The boy asked reaching out with small hands to caress the points on Legolas' ears, 'Like mama?'

He nodded slowly, thinking back on a time when the boy's father had done exactly the same thing.

'Why are you out of bed Eldarion? It is late, you should be asleep.'

The young prince looked embarrassed at the question.

'I had a nightmare,' he finally admitted in a small voice, he looked up at the Elf Prince for reassurance.

'I shall tell you a secret,' Legolas whispered to the boy who's eyes lit up, 'So did I.'

'And so,' the voice of the King of Gondor echoed down the corridor startling the two figures, 'did I.'

As he said this his eyes bored into those of his friend.


	3. The Nightmares Revealed

Title: The Nightmares Revealed

Author: Gevaudan

Email: clarkej@sghs.org.uk

Rating: G

Notes: The conversation referred to between Aragorn and Legolas further down the chapter is not one which occurs in LOTR but occurs in an earlier piece of fanfiction, 'The Mortality of The Immortal,' don't worry the content of the conversation is paraphrased for anyone who hasn't read it. 

Author's Note: I'd again just like to apologise for the fact that I am a Master Sluggard when it comes to getting a new chapter up. However he next chapter is in production and will hopefully feature such comedy moments as Legolas falling in a river. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reviews, and everyone who is following this story despite the fact I'm a scatterbrain. I also want to extend a massive thank you to Linis who reads this as it is hastily scribbled on bits of paper in my lunchbreaks and who is willing to listen to me ramble through possible ideas. Also thanks to Kezia who takes it all in good humour when I point out that clearly Legolas rocks more than Araogrn and try, with little success, to prove it.

***

'See Eldarion, even the monarch of Gondor suffers from nightmares now and then,' Legolas jested lightly, 'It is naught to be ashamed of.' But as he spoke his blue, wisdom filled eyes fixed on Aragorn, brimming with unspoken questions.

'Indeed it is not,' Aragorn affirmed, turning his attention away from his friend and to his son, ' but wandering the corridors at night when you should be asleep is. What were you doing out here young man?'

The young child turned to gaze up at his father, his contrite, 'Sorry papa,' he apologised, 'I was talking to Leggylas.'

His mispronunciation elicited a light laugh from the Elf in question, prompting the prince to turn and regard him with serious dark eyes, so similar to those of his mother, 'I was!' he insisted, at which the Elf laughed again. The child may have had the soft eyes of his mother but he undoubtedly had the iron will and stubbornness of his father.

'Indeed you were,' the Elf consented, his eyes dancing with glee in the flickering torchlight, 'but you sounded very much like your father sounds when it is late and he should be in bed.'

'Papa doesn't have a bedtime. He just gets to tell me mine.'

'Your father doesn't have a strict bedtime?' Legolas asked in mock puzzlement, angling a look at his old friend as he did so, 'Well he used to have to obey such a thing, although he too was not very good at staying in bed when that time came, and then he was a sluggard when the sun rose.'

Eldarion giggled at the term, the turned his serious eyes on the Elf Prince once more, 'How do you remember when my papa was little? He's much bigger than you.'

Here Aragorn answered, and Legolas was only too pleased to let him try and explain the agelessness of his people to a young mortal boy, 'Eldarion, do you remember how we spoke about the different people on Middle Earth?' The King asked his son.

'Yes…'

'And how some of the people, looked a lot like men like us, but were really very different?'

'Yes?'

'And so because they were different they looked young to us but really were quite old?'

'Do mean the Elves papa?' Eldarion finally asked, 'like Mama?' Then realisation dawned and he turned his eyes once more to the Elf Prince behind him. 'Oh, you're an Elf too! I noticed…but then I forgot. Sorry.'

Legolas smiled gently, 'that is quite all right, Eldarion. It is a difficult thing to remember where everyone you meet comes from, especially in a place where so many visitors pass through your door.'

'So you're a bit older than papa, even though you don't really look it?'

'Yes,' Legolas answered, willing to accept that several hundred years could be termed as, 'a bit,' 'that is correct, and so I can remember a time when your father was a child who should have been fast asleep in bed.'

'Like this child should be now.' Aragorn pointed out sternly.

'But Papa I don't want to go to bed! I'll have a nightmare again and I'll get scared and walk around again.'

At this Legolas stepped away from his position by the wall to crouch in front of the young boy, 'Fear not Eldarion, he told him, switching instinctively to his native Elven tongue, '_I elenath tiro lle._'

Fascinated the young boy listened to the strange Sindarin speech as it flowed, 'mama speaks like that sometimes to father. I don't understand it though, what did you just say?'

Still crouched before him Legolas softly translated, telling the story as he had to another young mortal in the halls of Imladris, 'It means, the stars will watch over you, in the language of my people. You see Eldarion, each one of those stars is a courageous warrior, who long ago made a valiant long journey to the Halls of Mandos, and these warriors wish to ensure that all those who are destined to be strong and brave like them are never troubled or hurt, so when you are asleep they will watch over you, and guard you, so that no harm will ever come to you.'

Eldarion nodded seriously, 'So the green sea monster won't come again?'

'He might come again,' the Elf admitted, 'but he will never be able to scare you or hurt you because all the warriors up in the heavens will be watching you always.'

With that the elf stood, 'Now go, off to bed with you for you need your sleep, as do I.'

Confidently the small child trotted away around the corner, presently they heard the soft opening and closing of a door and Legolas' acute hearing could just make out a faint rustle as the young child snuggled up in his bed once more.

'I remember when you used to tell me that story.' Aragorn commented, as he watched his son depart, 'You know I never saw that yellow headed sea monster ever again?'

'Really?' the Elf asked dryly, 'Then what is it that brings you to wander the corridors so late at night?'

'I told no untruths. I was woken by a nightmare, most disconcertingly, in a room that I did not go to sleep in.'

'That indeed is unusual. I have known mortals to speak of this sleepwalking but I do not ever recall you to suffer from such an affliction, even as a child. May I be so bold as to enquire as to the nature of he dreams of the King?'

Aragorn scowled at the comment, Legolas merely raised one eyebrow at the expression writ upon his face.

'I have had the same dream many times,' he finally admitted, leading the way into a well-furnished room. He gestured for Legolas to take the only seat in the room, after a moment's pause the Silvan did, perching on the edge of the seat his blue eyes never leaving the dark eyes of his friend, even as he paced back and forth across the room.

'What did you dream of?' he asked again gently after long moments of silence passed.

'What of you Legolas? You too spoke of nightmares, did you speak the truth or were you merely trying to comfort my son?'

'I told you no lies, Aragorn,' the Elf replied, 'I too have suffered the same nightmare for many nights these past months.'

'I did not know,' mused Aragorn, 'that Elves suffered from recurring nightmares. I thought your ability to walk in the dream world prevented you from suffering such afflictions.'

The usually confident Silvan answered in an uncharacteristic voice, small and insecure, 'Usually I do not suffer from recurring nightmares Aragorn, and you are indeed quite correct, no other Elf does either,' here his voice cracked betraying the hurt he felt, 'and so they think I am mad Aragorn! They see me awaken night after night and when morning comes they watch my every move for signs of faltering. They question each decision I make but assume that I am so incapacitated by my decline into madness that I do not notice their prying eyes at my back and their meddling in my affairs. That s the true reason I came here. In Ithilien I felt like a caged animal where every move I made was dogged by spectators looking for the final piece of evidence that proved the unravelling of my mind.' He dropped his head into one hand, a small sigh issued from between pale lips the only sign of his continued frustration.

Aragorn ceased his pacing to regard his friend silently at a loss for what to suggest. He had seen Legolas was troubled the very moment he arrived, but he had no idea the Elf was so disheartened. Legolas had always been one of the constants in his life, someone he could go to whenever he was troubled, usually when his foster brothers teased him. Yet he realised he had never seen the Elf show such emotions to him and now faced with such a situation he had no idea of the best way to handle it.

'What do you dream of?' He asked softly, dropping to crouch in front of the Elf, his dark eyes gazing into the haunted blue ones.

'It makes no sense,' Legolas finally cried out, exploding suddenly into movement, an action that knocked Aragorn off balance and sent him sprawling across the floor in an undignified heap. Almost absentmindedly Legolas offered a slender hand to his friend, his eyes focussed on a spot somewhere above the man's head. He released his grip abruptly, and began to pace the room, forcing Aragorn to choose between taking a seat in the chair or entering the path of the Elf.

'I dream of men in blue robes,' he stated finally, and from Aragorn's sharp intake of breath it appeared that their dreams ran along a similar theme.

'Each night they appear,' he continued, ' silently staring at me, approaching and I cannot move either to draw my bow or to flee. The dream is almost identical every night apart from the smallest of details, the area in which they stand, which changes nightly although many of them are unfamiliar to me.'

'I dreamed the same thing exactly,' Aragorn admitted, 'although I do not understand how we could share the same dreams. I have dreamed these dreams for nigh on three months, but I do not walk in the dream world as you do and I have never before noticed a change in scenery or an inability to move. I only see them standing silently, watching, and then in the morning awake in a room different to the one I wet to sleep in with no memory of how I came to be there.'

Legolas nodded, his blue eyes calmer and more thoughtful, 'I do not sleepwalk, but then I dream of being fixed to the spot while you are free to move. Each night they do not merely stand and watch me but advance, closer and closer until they stand face to face, and I am powerless to escape in any other way than to awaken. Usually,' he remarked with a trace of his old humour, which faded as quickly as it surfaced, 'In the dead of night, which I will admit is not the most convenient of times.'

Aragorn rested his head in his hand and stared in concern and the pale, wraith like figure before him. Never before had he seen Legolas so disconcerted, he had walked the circles of life for close to three thousand years and in that time, had seen and learned so much that he was seldom at a loss for knowledge, as he appeared to be now.

'I do not understand how it is we dream the same thing, Legolas, especially when I have never seen figures such as these in my life.'

'I am unable to think of an explanation Aragorn. I have never seen these figures although I have met people who bear a remarkable likeness in both dress and manner. To Mithrandir and Radegast they bore a striking resemblance although they were just as obviously neither of them,' Legolas stopped, mentally remonstrating himself for his absentmindedness at such a time, 'that brings to memory what happened in my dream this night. For the first time they did not remain silent, but asked for a location, the dwelling of Gandalf.'  

'Where did you see them?' Aragorn asked impatiently, suddenly filled with the fires on inspiration.

Legolas answered slowly, Aragorn's sudden change in attitude filling him with caution.

'I cannot be certain, for Middle Earth covers a vast expanse and of it I have seen very little. However there was a wide expanse of dry, rocky grassland, with a large amount of water flowing nearby. It appeared to be very similar to the lands of Northern Rohan, to the west of the Golden Halls of Edoras at the banks of the Entwash. Do you think this is significant?'

'I am unsure,' Aragorn mused, 'and although I am inclined to believe that nothing about these dreams is insignificant this remains merely one theory out of many possibilities. It was only brought to my mind when you spoke of the figures reminding you of Gandalf and the other Istari.' At this point he stood and led the way out of the room and down the corridors towards his chambers, 'I am in agreement with you that this was the case and when you mentioned it I remember you once telling me of the members of the Istari.' He sped his pace along the winding corridors of the white tower of Gondor so that Legolas was forced to a gentle lope to keep pace with him.

'Yes,' Legolas remembered the conversation as clearly as if it had occurred only yesterday, 'we spoke of the arrangement of the order of the Istari order. Saruman the White at the head of the order presiding over Gandalf the Grey, Radegast the Brown and two others,' he turned eyes, wide with sudden realisation on Aragorn, 'The Ithryn Luin.'

'Exactly.' Aragorn agreed, 'The Blue Wizards.'


End file.
